Competition and Civic Engagement in the Religious Marketplace

We develop a model of spatial competition to explain the high level of spending on social services that distinguishes American churches or faith-based organizations (FBOs). The model predicts that such spending, measured on a per member basis, rises as the equilibrium structure of the religious marketplace becomes more competitive. A simple test of the model using measures of a religious Herfindahl Index constructed by county and by year for panel data covering the years 1994 and 2000 confirms our analysis. As local FBO monopoly power grows, FBO spending on civic activities declines.

Cross-species genome-wide identification of evolutionary conserved microproteins

MicroProteins are small single-domain proteins that act by engaging their targets into different, sometimes nonproductive protein complexes. In order to identify novel microProteins in any sequenced genome of interest, we have developed miPFinder, a program that identifies and classifies potential microProteins. In the past years, several microProteins have been discovered in plants where they are mainly involved in the regulation of development by fine-tuning transcription factor activities. The miPFinder algorithm identifies all up to date known plant microProteins and extends the microProtein concept beyond transcription factors to other protein families. Here, we reveal potential microProtein candidates in several plant and animal reference genomes. A large number of these microProteins are species-specific while others evolved early and are evolutionary highly conserved. Most known microProtein genes originated from large ancestral genes by gene duplication, mutation and subsequent degradation. Gene ontology analysis shows that putative microProtein ancestors are often located in the nucleus, and involved in DNA binding and formation of protein complexes. Additionally, microProtein candidates act in plant transcriptional regulation, signal transduction and anatomical structure development. MiPFinder is freely available to find microProteins in any genome and will aid in the identification of novel microProteins in plants and animals

Probabilistic risk assessment of excavation performance in tunnel projects using Bayesian networks: a case study

Practical Applications and Case Studie

A study on the effects of hidden safety when assessing existing structures

In many instances, the safety of existing structures can no longer be demonstrated by standard code-based assessments. Reasons for this include changes in the code, changes in the demands on the structures and deterioration. To address this problem, it is common practice to perform a more detailed assessment utilizing advanced models. In this way, many structures can be shown to comply with safety requirements, even if they cannot be verified by standard assessments. The standard code models are often conservatively biased. This leads to designs which include hidden safety. If the reassessment is performed with more advanced models in lieu of standard models, the hidden safety can vanish. Concurrently, the reduced uncertainty of advanced models may compensate this safety reduction. In this paper we investigate this issue on a hypothetical population of existing bridge structures under traffic. We consider that the standard code model is exchanged by an advanced traffic load simulation

Time dependence of entanglement for steady state formation in AdS3_3/CFT2_2

We consider a holographic model of two 1+1-dimensional heat baths at different temperatures joined at time $t=0$, such that a steady state heat-current region forms and expands in space for times $t>0$. After commenting on the causal structure of the dual 2+1-dimensional spacetime, we present how to calculate the time-dependent entanglement entropy of the boundary system holographically. We observe that the increase rate of the entanglement entropy satisfies certain bounds known from the literature on entanglement tsunamis. Furthermore, we check the validity of several non-trivial entanglement inequalities in this dynamic system.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, these proceedings summarize a talk given at the Karl Schwarzschild Meeting 2017 and the much longer paper 1705.04696. v2: reference adde

Time evolution of entanglement for holographic steady state formation

Within gauge/gravity duality, we consider the local quench-like time evolution obtained by joining two 1+1-dimensional heat baths at different temperatures at time t=0. A steady state forms and expands in space. For the 2+1-dimensional gravity dual, we find that the shockwaves expanding the steady-state region are of spacelike nature in the bulk despite being null at the boundary. However, they do not transport information. Moreover, by adapting the time-dependent Hubeny-Rangamani-Takayanagi prescription, we holographically calculate the entanglement entropy and also the mutual information for different entangling regions. For general temperatures, we find that the entanglement entropy increase rate satisfies the same bound as in the "entanglement tsunami" setups. For small temperatures of the two baths, we derive an analytical formula for the time dependence of the entanglement entropy. This replaces the entanglement tsunami-like behaviour seen for high temperatures. Finally, we check that strong subadditivity holds in this time-dependent system, as well as further more general entanglement inequalities for five or more regions recently derived for the static case.Comment: 57 pages, 25 figures. v2: Minor revisions and references added. v3: Referee's comments included. The numerical codes described in this paper are available in the ancillary files directory (anc/) of this submissio

Value of information from vibration-based structural health monitoring extracted via Bayesian model updating

Quantifying the value of the information extracted from a structural health monitoring (SHM) system is an important step towards convincing decision makers to implement these systems. We quantify this value by adaptation of the Bayesian decision analysis framework. In contrast to previous works, we model in detail the entire process of data generation to processing, model updating and reliability calculation, and investigate it on a deteriorating bridge system. The framework assumes that dynamic response data are obtained in a sequential fashion from deployed accelerometers, subsequently processed by an output-only operational modal analysis scheme for identifying the system's modal characteristics. We employ a classical Bayesian model updating methodology to sequentially learn the deterioration and estimate the structural damage evolution over time. This leads to sequential updating of the structural reliability, which constitutes the basis for a preposterior Bayesian decision analysis. Alternative actions are defined and a heuristic-based approach is employed for the life-cycle optimization. By solving the preposterior Bayesian decision analysis, one is able to quantify the benefit of the availability of long-term SHM vibrational data. Numerical investigations show that this framework can provide quantitative measures on the optimality of an SHM system in a specific decision context